A one-person, fully AI-assisted remake of the classic 1995 dungeon crawler Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol, rebuilt from scratch in the Godot Engine for modern desktop and mobile.
This is an independent, non-commercial preservation/hobby project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by MakeItSo Software or any current rights holder of the original game. See DISCLAIMER.md.
What's published here: compiled game builds, distributed as Releases. The remake's own source code is not published in this repository at this time.
This project is a deliberate experiment in solo, AI-driven game development:
- One-person project. Designed, built, and maintained by a single developer.
- 100% "vibe coded." The entire codebase was written conversationally with an AI coding agent — describing intent and iterating, rather than hand-typing the implementation. Every gameplay rule is still held to the original game as the source of truth, with a strict test suite and a faithfulness rule behind it.
- All assets are AI-generated. Every piece of art (monsters, character portraits, items, spells, towns, UI) plus the music and sound effects shipped with the game are original, AI-generated replacements. No original-game art, audio, or data is included — you bring your own copy of the original game and the data is extracted locally on your device (see Bring your own game data).
The town hub — guilds, shops, and services, with your hero's portrait and stats.
 Exploring the dungeon and facing an encounter. |
 The character sheet — inventory, equipment, and spellbook. |
 Recruiting AI-driven allies at the tavern. |
 Buying and selling at the general store. |
 Silver Dragon |
 Spectral Dragon |
 Phoenix |
 Flame Devil |
 Gorgon |
 Wolf Spider |
Portraits are generated per race, guild, gender, and progression tier, so your character's look evolves as they grow in power.
 Elf Sorcerer |
 Giant Nomad |
 Human Thief |
 Gnome Healer |
 Osiri Seeker |
 Troll Villain |
 Adamantite Sword |
 Holy Sword |
 Ring of Flames |
 Crystal of Healing |
 Tome of Learning |
 Potion of Health |
 Firebolt |
 Sphere of Flames |
 Ice Spray |
 Teleport |
 Minor Heal |
 Resurrect |
The remake stays faithful to the original's formulas and content, but modernizes the structure of play:
- Single-player or local couch co-op. Play solo, or pair two independent characters in a local two-player session on one machine — each player drives their own input device (gamepad, keyboard + mouse, or touch).
- AI-enabled allies. Recruit NPC adventurers at the tavern and charm monsters to fight at your side; companions act and support autonomously through a combat AI. A solo hero can lead up to four companions.
- One hero, not a four-slot party. You control a single character (plus companions) instead of micromanaging a fixed party of four.
- No aging. The original's aging mechanic — and the death risk it carried — is removed entirely.
- Gold is auto-banked. Your gold is deposited safely on entering town, so you never carry it (or risk losing it) into the dungeon.
- Death sends you back to town. No corpse to recover and no morgue trip — you respawn in town and carry on.
- Stat drain is recoverable. Drained stats are restored when you return to town — for a fee — instead of the loss being permanent.
- Guild quests are flexible. Quests can be completed with any guild active.
- Reimagined presentation. A 2D top-down map with paperdoll monster art, rather than the original's 3D first-person corridors.
- Full controller & touch support. Gamepad focus navigation with a radial hotbar, plus a dedicated phone layout with an on-screen d-pad.
The released builds ship no original game content — no maps, items, monsters, spells, artwork, or audio from the original game. Instead, on first launch the game asks you to point it at your own copy of the original Mordor installer, and it extracts the data it needs locally on your device.
For convenience, the freely redistributable shareware distribution of the
original game is included in this repository at
tests/fixtures/MORDOR11.ZIP. Redistribution of
that shareware package is explicitly permitted by the original publisher (see
tests/fixtures/README.md). It contains the first
3 dungeon levels. If you own the full retail game, you can point the importer at
your own copy to unlock all 15 levels.
The original game's data, artwork, and audio remain the property of their respective rights holders and are never redistributed by this project in extracted or transformed form.
- Download the build for your platform from the Releases page.
- Launch it. On first run, the Set Up Your Game Data screen lets you import
from a
.ZIP(such as the bundled shareware) or a looseMORDOR.WIP, by picking a local file/folder or by entering a download URL. - (Optional) You may also extract the original sound effects and/or monster artwork from your own copy to use in place of the bundled replacements. This can be toggled any time later from Settings → Manage Original Assets….
New to the game? Read the Player Help & Guide — a per-screen how-to plus a Quickstart and a list of differences from the original. See the Changelog for what's changed between releases.
Windows, Android, and (work-in-progress) web/console targets.
The original work in this repository — the remake itself and its compiled builds — is released under the MIT License, Copyright (c) 2026 Matteo Prosperi.
The MIT license applies only to this project's own original work. It does not apply to, and grants no rights in:
- the bundled shareware package (
tests/fixtures/MORDOR11.ZIP) or any other original-game content, which remains the property of its rights holders and is redistributed only under the original publisher's own shareware terms; or - the names, trademarks, and other intellectual property of the original game and its publisher.
See DISCLAIMER.md for the full legal notice.